Josef Fritzl sentenced to life for murder of child

Josef Fritzl is likely to spend the rest of his life in a mental institution after an Austrian jury convicted him today of murdering one of the seven children he fathered by his own daughter.

It was the first in a string of guilty verdicts against the 73-year-old tyrant, who kept his daughter Elisabeth locked up as a sex slave in a dark, rat-infested cellar for 24 years. He was also found guilty of rape, sequestration, grievous assault and enslavement.

Among the seven children Elisabeth bore were twin boys born in 1996, one of whom, Michael, died after a few days. Fritzl, found guilty of "murder by neglect", disposed of his corpse in a domestic boiler.

After a four-day trial, Fritzl told the court that he accepted the sentence, meaning that it will come into effect immediately without any appeal.

"After confessing to 3,000 instances of rapes, 24 years of captivity in a cellar plus murder, it?s obvious that such a sentence will be handed down," his lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, told reporters outside the courtroom after Fritzl was driven away. "Obviously, he thinks this sentence is fair."

A court official, Franz Cutka, said that Fritzl could theoretically be released in 15 years - or 14 years including time already served - if doctors considered him cured and a panel of judges ruled that he had been punished enough. It is considered far more likely that he will die either in a pyschiatric hospital or mainstream prison.

On Monday Fritzl pleaded not guilty to the most serious charges - those of murder and enslavement - apparently hoping that he could get out of prison within a few years.

But he abruptly changed his plea yesterday, accepting his guilt on all counts, although under the Austrian judicial system the jury still had to consider his guilt and assess his punishment, which took them only three hours.

In his closing statement to the jury, Mr Mayer explained his client's change of heart: his resistance crumbled after he caught sight of his daughter Elisabeth during her secret visit to the courtroom on Tuesday

Mr Mayer, who has received repeated death threats for his decision to defend Fritzl, told jurors: "It was a meeting of eyes that changed his mind. Josef Fritzl recognised that Elisabeth was in court and, from this point on, you could see [him] going pale and he broke down."

At the same time Fritzl himself offered his first clear public apology for his crimes. "I am sorry from the bottom of my heart," he told the jury. "I cannot take back what I did."

"Don?t believe him," replied Christiane Burkheiser, the chief prosecutor. "He?s shown his true face in trying to exploit people?s gullibility ... It was murder by neglect and that demands the maximum sentence."

Friztl?s demeanour during his trial, when he at first tried to prevent himself being photographed with a document file, marked a dramatic break with the image of strength and control he displayed to the outside world throughout the period of abuse and even after it was exposed.

While raping Elisabeth at will in the secret basement dungeon, Fritzl posed as the father of an everyday household back upstairs, where he slept at night with his wife, Rosemarie.

The act was apparently so successful that Rosemarie had no inkling of her husband?s double life and believed that Elisabeth had simply run off to join a sect.

Fritzl also had little trouble playing the respectable electrical engineer while keeping his daughter and her children as prisoners. "Do you think I could have held grill parties in the garden if I?d thought about them?" Fritzl asked his psychiatrist, Adelheid Kastner.

According to Ms Kastner, Fritzl knew of his evil side and had a mental dysfunction that would not lessen with age.

Fritzl?s severe personality disorder is rooted in the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother, the psychiatrist said.

Born in Amstetten, a nondescript town west of Vienna, on April 9, 1935, Fritzl was constantly beaten and had few friends. In later life he turned from victim to perpetrator, developing a "massive need for power" which soon became sexual.

Fritzl was emotionally stunted, the psychiatrist told the court. "He is aware - he says so himself - that he has an evil side. He is aware that he was born to rape. He has that partly under control. But as soon as he loosens his grip everything erupts out," she said.

Ms Kastner asked him why he had chosen Elisabeth, out of his seven legitimate children, as his victim: "His reply was, 'Because she was most like me. She was as stubborn me, as strong as me. The stronger your opponent, the bigger the victory.' "

Times Online